Black History Month and Me

I have to admit that I have little patience for people who ignore or dismiss with benign neglect the significance of Black History Month. Yes, nail me for being judgmental, or nail me for my attitude toward people who are dismissive of Black people and the history and depth and breadth of the contributions of Black America upon America. 

Several years ago, an official in the USDA approached me at a land loss summit, pulled me aside, and encouraged me to tell the farmers to "get over it," to move on with their lives and to let this thing drop. I actually ran across his page over on Facebook, the "people you may know" app, and low and behold, yes, I did "know" him, if a weekend makes for knowing.  I wonder what he thinks of things now.  Does he even remember that inflammatory conversation. 

That same weekend, another USDA employee was distant and "in his head" about these matters of injustices, but another USDA employee was not. Through her tears she had us turn off our recording devices and she spoke the truth to us, the truth that we knew to be THE TRUTH. I am still deeply grateful for her and have sought her advice on several occasions. 

The truth is that this country was built on the backs of Black people. Their bodies were the commodity that was worth so much that we'd choose to fight a civil war over it, but then, once that was over, and reconstruction was gone, and the Black Codes, and then separate but equal, and Jim Crow were in place, we promptly forgot, or we never knew because teachers were forbidden or afraid to teach the truth in our history classes. 

I consider myself to be more than an ally these days.  Early on I was an outside observer. Over the course of time, I was invited in to participate. Now, though I have not put it up for vote, I consider myself a fully engaged member of the movement. Stories of Black America, from Africa through the Middle Passage, to the auction block, to plantation life, Freedom, Reconstruction, Jim Crow South, and up to now, I have heard stories. Numerous farmers have chronicled their genealogies all the way back to slave days. Their ancestor's name, on a specific plantation, and how things rolled from them to now. 

So, don't tell me that enslavement was then and there but this is here and now. I do not ask for forgiveness when I get angry at people who stick their heads in the sand and ignore or disregard the stories of the ancestors and their survival against insurmountable odds. 

In theological terms, "Black farmers" is a particular. Racism is the universal. Racism that has undergirded our country invaded the halls of the USDA from DC down to the county committee level. So, you talk about Black farmers, you'll be talking about them, and you'll be making inferences for racism in America.

Thirty years ago, I had not heard of "Black farmers," and now, the term is in my every day vernacular. I read, research, write, advocate, and tell stories of Black farmers. I sit in on teleconference or Zoom meetings with senators' offices in DC, crafting The Justice for Black  Farmers Act of 2021, introduced in the Senate by Booker, Warren, Warnock, and Gillibrand, or finding out the current status of things, or asking why a particular phrase was there in the text rather than another phrase. 

I am encouraged by Senator Reverend Warnock's bill, "Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act," which has been written into President Biden's COVID-19 Relief Act," a bill that will relieve the indebtedness of Black farmers, and other minority farmers, where interest is piled on top of interest on top of interest, initially created by USDA officials who discriminated against them. Otherwise, the debt would not be there.

We have it on good record that 20,000 Black farmers are on the verge of foreclosure. In 1920, there were 950,000 Black farmers who farmed on 22,000 farms, who in 1910 farmed 47,000,000 acres. In 1910, Black farmers owned 19,100,000 acres, which was down to 16,700,000 acres in 1920.

In 2017, there were 35,470 Black-owned farms with total acreage of 4,673,140 acres and an average farm size of 132 acres. In this same year, the percentage of Black-owned farms was 1.7%. 

According to Stucki and Rosenberg (2019) and Lloyd Wright (2021), the numbers of loans to Black farmers is incredibly low by comparison to white farmers. They estimate that in terms of the loss of generational wealth to Black families given the horrendous loss of farms and acres is close to $1 trillion dollars. Here is what that looks like: $1,000,000,000,000. 

Now, on the one hand, we have a redo Secretary at the USDA. He failed the first time, but we are watching him now. On the other hand, we have hope in The Act of 2021, authored primarily by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, and we have the bill for emergency relief that will offer $5 billion in debt relief and services. 

No sum of money will make Black farmers whole. After all, what is a pair of eyes, a pair of kidneys, a brain, or a marriage and family worth? There is no price.

So, don't tell me that there is no need any longer for Black History Month. 

Footprints in the Sand: Influences Toward Becoming an Ally

 Here we are in the middle of February, Black History Month. There is so much to do for the cause of justice and equality across our land. 

Over the last month or so, Shoun and I have talked to two agencies that develop films or distribute them. They both have wanted to know our history and involvement with the Black farmer movement. While Shoun has his own personal narrative, I have mine as well. People are oftentimes surprised to find out that my commitment to the movement goes back to 1994. It is still a curiosity, and perhaps more perhaps, that a white man has been involved with the Black farmer movement for that long, and in a variety of roles, expert witness, advocate, researcher, speaker, mentor to students, and now the documentary. 

Beyond that, my personal journey has been to deconstruct family life, racist upbringing, Jim Crow south, and all. 

People oftentimes ask me how did I come to this place. I wonder myself. All of us have journeys that lead to work against racism and for justice. Most of us do not just fall out of some tree and land where we are. We have influences along the way. Here are some of mine. 

Growing up poor, and in a single parent family after the death of my father, there was an instinct buried in there somewhere for the marginalized. Add to that my mother's mental health issues and hospitalizations, and that shaped me toward kids and folks who experience that shame and all, those who feel, in the words of today, "otherized" and shamed. 

There is the story of my family having a Black woman who took care of us and cooked and all while my parents worked. Her name was Cora. I wish I could talk to her family, find out more about them, and thank them for her life. There's more to that story, but will save that for later. 

My father was a major influence on me in many and contradictory ways. On the one hand, one of his friends was a Black man by the name of Charlie. I'll never know if they were friends in the friend sense of the word or if the relationship was one of convenience as they both worked for the same wealthy guy. At least I know that on occasion Charlie would come to the house and he and my father would sit and drink tea on the front porch. On the other hand, were the words that came out of my father when he watched an all Black television program, "No kid of mine will ever go to school with no n****rs." 

In high school I fell under the influence of Dr. Robert Lee Washington, my first and only Black teacher. In the preparatory days toward integration, Black teachers and kids came over to my white high school and some white teachers went over to Westside High School, a Black school only a few blocks from the white school. The mother of one of my younger brother's friends taught there. I had all of my science classes with him. He had more confidence in my abilities in science than I did. He even invited me to become his lab assistant and with it came a white lab coat. On one occasion,  one of my friends walked by me and under his breath said, "N****r lover." There was a price for associating with a Black teacher. 

A side theme here is that Dr. Washington often played his saxophone in my younger brother's band that played around East Texas. One night I went to hear them rehearse, and there sat Dr. Washington. What a cool moment. He was living out how to connect across races and generations by just playing his sax. 

Then, there is the grocery store event that is frozen in my mind. While my older brother was delivering bread to the local store, I worked there, stocking, checking out, bagging, and the like. On one occasion, a Black woman wanted to speak to the manager. I approached him and said, "Mr. ........, that lady wants to talk to you. " "That's not a lady," he said. "Well, that woman wants to talk to you." "That's not a woman. That's a n****r." And he went off to speak to her with a smile on his face.

The final pivotal event happened at church. Our small town church was holding a "gospel meeting" and we were invited to invite our friends. I took it seriously. I invited the preacher and his family from the Black church of Christ there in town. I still recall the shock on the white men's faces when the Black preacher and some of his church people showed up. They were quickly ushered to the back row. After a few minutes, there was noise from the back of the church building. The men had brought out an old white church pew that was in class room and placed it up front, to the left of the pulpit along the wall. The Black brothers and sisters were invited to sit there. In a house of God, segregated. I was embarrassed, and embarrassed for them. 

My denomination and my church in particular are still not good at social justice notions. We'll feed to poor, cloth the folks who need clothing and all, but we won't talk about racism or Jean Botham's murder or the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, or Breonna Taylor. Did I say that we are a predominantly white church? 

There are longer stories about the Black farmer movement and my involvement. We'll hold that for another day. 

For today, we'll just leave it here, that all of us have in some ways been touched by the hand of God. We tell our stories in ways that honor the movement of God, or we continue to try to figure it all out. Maybe both.

So, for me, for now, in the middle of Black History Month, my life has been shaped by a lot of things that have much to do with the marginalized and much to do with how we treat people whose skin is a different color than ours. 

At each of those events from the past, there was a voice inside that said, "That's not right. That's just not right." With my father, the grocery store manager, the friend who insulted me, or the church leaders, something said, "That's not right." 

What are your stories that have shaped you toward doing good in the world? What have been those times of the whisper of 'that's just not right?"  

Very interested to hear. 

Dear Lord, Please Quiet My Troubled Soul

Dear Lord, please quiet my troubled soul

And may I ever be so bold

As to make a plea

Worded only to thee

To give my weary soul

A dose of heavenly bold

To say what must and should be said

About the living and the dead

And from this morose and sadness rise

And lift my eyes up toward the skies

And though I know not where you really abide

Allow me to stand by your riven side

For whose burdens do now I feel

And from whose stories must I steal

To tell the truth to those who hear

And bring repentance to every ear

Not my story for it is surely their own

I listen and listen until I moan

For their bodies and souls to be set free

Anointed and graced my humble plea

Broken bodies healed

Spirits once crushed by your love is sealed

Injustices noted and sins against revealed

White peoples’ crimes no longer yield

Oppression now gone

Let freedom ring

They own the land

All voices with passion now sing.

Amen